Business

5 important things happening in South Africa today

Staff Writer

 ·24 Aug 2017

Here’s what is happening and affecting South Africa today:

• As the Gupta family sells off its Tegeta mining assets to a little-known Swiss shelf company, information has emerged that the owner of the company – Amin Al Zarooni – has helped the family hide their interests in the past. Investigative journalists have uncovered that Zarooni headed up a Dubai company which had a sole function to help Gupta businesses avoid South African tax.

• National Treasury has confirmed that it is looking to sell its stake in Telkom to fund a R10 billion bailout in South African Airways, though it said it was only an ‘option’ at this stage, with nothing finalised. SAA is making billion rand losses, and has R20 billion in debt. Government holds a stake of about 39% in Telkom, with the PIC holding 11.4%.

• The JSE has dropped its plan to scrap the requirement for listed companies to report their financials in print publications, after the plan to go digital was not supported by a large number of companies. Publications like BusinessDay had made representations to the JSE to stop the group from changing those listing requirements.

• A leading economist says that South Africa is “truly stuck” in a low-growth economy, with little to no options open for the government to try turn things around. According to Stanlib’s Kevin Lings, the only real way to get out of the slump is to boost business confidence in the country – and with the current state of affairs, that direction looks unlikely.

• South Africa’s rand clawed back losses to end largely flat on Wednesday following a lower inflation readout that triggered some selling by foreign investors searching for higher yields as the likelihood of further interest rate cuts increased. On Thursday the rand was trading at R13.16 to the dollar, R16.83 to the pound and R15.54 to the euro.